


Futile Devices

by Miracule



Series: 1974 [1]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Angst, Brian is Never Well, Brian is Not Well, Brian's Shit 1974, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 15:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miracule/pseuds/Miracule
Summary: Brian knows that he’s fucked.He knew it from the moment his straight-shooting American doctor sat him down and told him that his liver wasn’t functioning properly, and that he really should check himself into a hospital at his earliest convenience.





	Futile Devices

**Author's Note:**

> JFK → LHR

Brian doesn’t like flying. It’s not that he’s afraid, per se. He just doesn’t like heights. It makes him queasy, looking down at the ground and seeing his world from such a distant, sprawling perspective. It’s a perfectly reasonable, innate survival instinct to not like heights.

Freddie disagrees. _I think it’s like a dream_ , he said to Brian when they first found themselves in the air together. _Yeah_ , Brian answered, _a bad one._

The flight from JFK to Heathrow is about seven and a half hours long. Too long, by Brian’s standards.

Roger suggests that he might be able to sleep through most of it, which Brian doesn’t think is particularly likely. He never sleeps on planes. He can sleep in airports, contorting his body into those seats that look like they were made only for children, but he can’t sleep on planes.

“Right,” Roger mutters, taking another long drag from his cigarette.

Brian flinches. He doesn’t want to kick up a fuss, but the smell of the smoke is making feel ill. He usually doesn’t mind it too much—he’s gotten used to smoke in close quarters over the years—but at the moment it’s making his stomach churn dangerously. He angles himself toward Freddie instead, who’s sat closest to the aisle in the adjacent row.

God, he feels really awful. It’s not just the smoke, either. Everything hurts—his arm, which has been swollen and hot to the touch for days now, and his belly too. There’s this dull, throbbing ache that just won’t go away, no matter how he holds himself.

He looks at Freddie, who looks back at him with a smile. It would be reassuring if he weren’t frowning at the same time.

“You okay?” he asks quietly, leaning across the aisle to squeeze Brian’s wrist.

Brian nods, but surely Freddie knows better than that. The truth is that he feels ill. Really, _really_ ill. It’s not quite like anything he’s ever felt before.

He knows that he’s fucked.

He knew it from the moment his straight-shooting American doctor sat him down and told him that his liver wasn’t functioning properly, and that he really should check himself into a hospital at his earliest convenience.

Roger agreed, and later Brian heard him arguing in hushed tones with the management back home. “It’s _hepatitis_ ,” he said, practically hissing the word into the receiver, “he’s not fucking flying!”

But _fucking_ fly they did, because apparently, American medical care is over their budget.

Brian wasn’t totally against it. In a way, it felt like his penance. After all, it’s his fault that they’re in this mess anyway.

 _God_ , that smoke is really doing him in. 

“Rog,” he croaks, “can you put that out?” 

Roger extinguishes his cigarette in the ashtray. “Sorry,” he says, wincing. Brian shakes his head, trying to get across that _it’s fine, it doesn’t matter._ He can’t open his mouth at the moment, though. If he does, he’s gonna puke.

“Do you feel sick?” Roger asks, studying him warily.

Brian nods.

Freddie, who’s definitely been eavesdropping, turns and waves down a stewardess on her way into first class. “Can we get a sick bag, please?” he asks, making a few heads turn in his direction. But Freddie is Freddie. He’s never been one for discretion. 

A minute later, he shoves a brown paper bag into Brian’s hands. 

It’s good timing too, because Brian immediately starts to heave. It’s not pleasant. By the time he’s finished, he’s drenched in sweat and shaking like a leaf. Roger, who’s graciously been holding his hair out of his face, swears under his breath.

He sounds worried, Brian thinks, and that doesn’t bode well.

Freddie passes him a few cocktail napkins, but Brian can’t bring himself to look him in the eye.

Jet engines are far too loud. The sound permeates everything. It’s in his head, his chest—constant, droning. It’s starting to drive him a bit mad.

But that isn’t the worst of it.

It’s the cold that really bothers him, and the denim jacket that Roger’s given him doesn’t offer much in the way of warmth. He’s shivering, and of course Roger’s taken notice. He leans in and touches the back of his hand to Brian’s forehead.

“You’re warm,” he mutters, shifting his hand to the nape of Brian’s neck. “What was your temperature this morning, 38?”

“I think,” Brian sighs. “Feels cold, though.”

“It’s not that cold. I think you’ve just got the chills.” Roger sinks forward in his seat and leans his chin into his palm, frowning. “I really should’ve bought a thermometer at the airport.”

“’S’fine.”

Roger huffs and shakes his head ever so slightly. Brian can see that he’s not convinced, so he tries to shrug a shoulder, but it comes off as more of a twitch.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, during which Brian attempts to work with the roar of the engines. It’s not totally unlike a lullaby, is it? A constant, roaring lullaby. At least it never changes. It’s just there—like the purr of some great big cat. Or not. No, that’s not _really_ it, is it? It’s a bit like when you stick your head under the waves at the beach. That sound of the water rushing past your ears. Yes, that’s more like it.

Brian thinks that the first thing he’ll do when he feels better— _if_ he feels better—is go to the beach.

But he’s just begun to consider _which_ beach when a patch of turbulence jostles them about. Excellent timing. Brian sighs, shifting around for a better position, which of course doesn’t exist, but he can’t help himself.

Roger, clearly not enjoying this turn of events, drums nervously against his knee. He takes a sip of the whisky he ordered earlier—his second already—and turns to Brian. “What causes turbulence, exactly?”

His question takes a moment to register in Brian’s fogged-up brain. 

“Erm, it’s air,” Brian tells him, and Roger makes an indignant noise.

“I know _that_ ,” he whines. “But like, what’s happening to the air?”

Brian takes a breath. “It depends. There’s different sorts.”

“Like what?” Roger is really not going to let this one go, is he? Brian isn’t sure if he can come up with any sort of decent explanation in this state, but the teacher in him has to try.

“Well, there’s a type caused by thermals. That’s... air that’s been heated up by the sun, which rises, and then, erm, interacts with the air up here. It creates these, like, obstructions, you could call them, which we feel as turbulence.” 

“Uh- _huh_.”

“Also, if the plane gets caught between a jet stream—that’s like, hot and cold air coming together, moving quickly—and the slower air on the outside of the jet stream, that can cause it as well.”

He has to speak quite loudly to be heard over the engines, which is immensely tiring, but he presses on.

“It can also be mountains, stuff like that. Not likely, since we’re flying over water now.”

At this point, he thinks he’s done a pretty decent job. Roger nods slowly.

“It’s pretty much safe,” Brian adds, getting to the heart of the matter.

“Ah,” Roger smiles.

“Good?”

“Good.”

Brian can’t help but crack a little smile. Roger doesn’t usually let him explain anything. Well, it’s not as if he usually _needs_ Brian to explain anything. In most areas, Roger is more up to date than he is. But it’s nice to feel useful, even if it comes at a price.

He leans back against his headrest, trying to catch his breath.

Brian wakes up, which is in itself surprising.

It means that he managed to fall asleep. This is quite the feat considering his track record of sleepless nights on airplanes. But yes, he’s certainly just woken up. Before, where there was a soft dark nothing, there’s now the dim glow of cabin lights and the ubiquitous roar of jet engines.

And of course, the pain.

Why the _fuck_ did he wake up anyway, if this is what was in store?

Roger looks over his shoulder. “You all right?”

“Sort of,” Brian mumbles. His vision is swimming and it takes him a long moment to focus on Roger’s face, which is etched with concern. “How long’s it been?”

Roger taps his watch. “Since we took off? About four hours.”

“Really?”

“You were out for a while,” Roger tells him, stifling a yawn. “I got you water.” He picks up a cup sitting on his tray table and offers it to Brian, who shakes his head.

“I don’t think I can,” he says, his stomach already churning at the thought. But he knows he should, and so does Roger, who doesn’t take no for an answer.

Brian tries small sips, one after another. It feels good, if only briefly, to have something cool going down his throat. But as he predicted, he can only drink about half before feeling queasy.

There’s also a familiar pressure building in his bladder, which is a much more immediate issue because it means that he’ll have to get up to take care of it. That is what scares him the most. He’ll finish Roger’s water, fine, but he finds himself dreading the idea of having to make it all the way to the back of the cabin. He knows, as much as the idea disgusts him, that he’d prefer to have help.

He looks to his left. Freddie is sitting back with his eyes closed, his knee bouncing rhythmically. John is flipping through a magazine, going from page to page far too quickly to actually be reading. Overall, the cabin is quiet. Quiet and dark. No one would pay him that much attention, surely.

“Rog,” he mutters, “I have to go.”

“Go where?”

“No, like... _go_.” Brian nods toward the back of the plane.

Roger nods, not quite getting it.

Brian digs his nails into his palm. “I mean, could you...”

Roger blinks at him. “Oh,” he mouths. “Right.”

Roger reaches for his upper arm, but Brian quickly jerks out of his grip. “Not there,” he grinds out. _That’s where it hurts._

“Shit, sorry,” Roger mutters, flushing pink. Brian stands on his own, using his armrest as leverage as Roger hovers behind him.

“Rog? Where are you going?” Freddie turns around in his seat, his expression pure worry.

“Lavs,” Roger answers, quietly.

“Oh,” says Freddie.

Great. _Fucking_ great.

Somehow, it’s only when they’re three-quarters of the way there that the full reality of the situation crashes down on Brian's head. How’s he going to do this exactly? Ask Roger to squeeze in with him? That’ll draw some funny looks, and it’s not as if these things are built to fit two grown men inside of them.

That much is confirmed when they open the door.

“Can you just... stay out here?”

Roger grimaces, looks sideways at him. “You sure?”

Brian groans a little. No, he’s not sure. But he really does have to go. Like, now.

“Look,” Roger says, furtively glancing up the aisle. “No one’s watching. Go.” He nudges Brian in and then hovers right behind him, propping the door open with his body and keeping one hand at Brian’s side. Brian’s face burns. This fucking illness isn’t going to let him have a modicum of dignity, is it?

“Look, mate,” Roger pleads with him, “I’d rather you not pass out _here_ , of all places.” 

Brian has to allow that Roger has a point.

But when he’s finally finished, it feels as if time’s moved impossibly slowly, and that they’ve been there forever and a day. “Sorry,” he mutters, still working on his buttons. 

Roger shrugs it off. “Don’t say that. You’re perfectly all right, mate. Perfectly all right.”

A wave of nausea hits him like a freight train.

“Fuck,” he breathes, bending forward to rest his head on the seatback in front of him. Just go away, he begs. _Please just go away._

He isn’t sure if he can stand much more of this. It really isn’t fair. It’s as if his body is fighting a war against him on multiple fronts, and he’s being absolutely beaten to shit on all of them.

If there were anywhere to divert the flight to, he’d drag himself to the cockpit and beg for it. But there just isn’t anywhere to go. Greenland is probably just as far as the UK at this point, otherwise he’d happily go for Greenland. They have hospitals there, don’t they? Ice hospitals.

“Brian? You all right?” That’s Freddie.

Brian is almost too caught up in breathing—in and out, _fucking_ _in and out_ —to answer. He shakes his head.

A pause.

“What’s wrong? Are you going to be sick?”

_Yeah, probably._

Freddie says something under his breath and turns to John, who Brian can’t quite see from this angle. He can, however, look sideways at Roger, who seems to have finally passed out with his head lolling against the window. Lucky bastard.

Someone squeezes his knee, and Brian turns to come face to face with Freddie crouching next to him.

He hands Brian his paper bag. “John asked our stewardess for a few, so we’re covered.”

“Thanks,” Brian croaks. His voice sounds vaguely tinny—like it’s being mimicked back at him through a radio. Has he always sounded like that? That _small_?

“Look at him, huh?” Freddie murmurs, nodding toward Roger. “Like a little blond baby.”

Brian doesn’t respond. He knows he’s about to be sick, and he wants to say something along the lines of, _sorry,_ _I’m about to be sick_ , _actually,_ but he doesn’t have the energy to spare. What little energy he does have is spent on useless dry heaving, which of course doesn’t bring anything up. There just isn’t anything left.

By the time he’s finished, there are tears clouding his vision. It hurts. It fucking hurts and he wants it to fucking _stop_. Freddie holds onto him, wipes at his face. “All right,” he says, his voice low. “That’s it. Breathe, will you?”

Roger, presumably awakened by the noise of Brian being sick, stays very quiet.

Brian knows that they’re scared. Of course they are. But he doesn’t have time to dwell on that. There’s somebody here to see him. John, having quietly left them, has returned with a pretty middle-aged woman in tow.

“This is Martha,” he tells them. “She’s a nurse. I met her in the terminal. She wants to have a look at you, if that’s all right.”

Freddie stands to give her space. “Martha? Freddie.”

“Roger.”

“And _this_ is Brian.” 

“Yeah. Our virtuoso,” Freddie adds.

“Hiya,” she says. Her voice is soft. And Welsh. “Good to meet you all. Brian, I’m gonna take a look at you first, okay?”

Martha leans down to peer into his face, and immediately Brian has to resist the urge to turn away. He doesn’t want to imagine how awful he must look.

“Can I have your hand?” Her fingers are dry and warm. It feels nice.

She takes his pulse first, frowning down at her watch. Then she peers at him again, gently tilting his chin up toward the overhead light. Brian can’t help but wince at that. His head is pounding.

“I know,” she soothes. “Sorry, love.”

She lays a hand on the back of his neck, only for a second or two. Brian guesses that she doesn’t need any longer than that to feel that he’s feverish. 

“You feel hot, were you running a temperature?”

Brian nods. “About 38,” he mutters.

“Pain?” she asks him.

“Yeah.” 

“Here?” She gestures to the right side of his abdomen. 

Brian nods weakly, and John adds, “His arm’s in bad shape as well. They said it’s an infection from when he was vaccinated.”

“How long ago was that?”

“About a month,” Roger mutters.

“And that hurts too?”

Brian nods.

“Can I see?”

It isn’t easy. Brian has to undo his shirt and slip it off his shoulder. Martha looks at his arm and frowns, and Brian isn’t at all surprised. He already knows it’s bad. It’s just a question of how bad.

“I really don’t like the look of the injection site there,” she sighs. “I think you’re stable. But you need to get to a doctor when we land. Honestly, go to A&E. This sort of hepatitis can be quite serious, and you really need to clear that infection before it gets worse.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, we will,” Roger answers for him.

“And,” she pauses for a beat, “you can come get me if anything changes. I’m in F5. John knows. Also, there’s an empty row at the back—one of the three across. He might be able to lie down there. I’ll have a word with the staff.”

Freddie nods eagerly. “Could you?”

“I’ll come with,” John offers, and they walk off together. Martha leans close to him and says something that Brian can’t make out.

But whatever she says to the staff, it works.

When a young stewardess comes by asking if Brian wants to lie down in the back, they all nod at once.

“Can we go with him?” Freddie asks, already gathering his things.

The stewardess agrees, but there’s only one empty seat in the adjacent row. Roger and Freddie have a bit of a tussle over it, and John doesn’t even try to compete. “I’ll stay with the bags,” he offers.

It’s funny, Brian thinks—he was never this popular in the recording studio.

It’s late. He knows that much by the fact that all the cabin lights are dimmed, and everyone he can see is either sleeping or half-sleeping, gazing emptily into their paperback novels.

Brian isn’t so lucky. His limbs feel like lead and he can hardly keep his eyes open, but he can’t sleep. Even lying on his side, almost comfortable in his little three-seat bed, he can’t _fucking_ sleep. There’s this pressure in his chest, his throat, tight and unrelenting.

He wants fucking Martha back.

Not that he needs her to look him over—he doesn’t need a reminder of how _fucked_ he is—he just wants to hear her speak again. She has the sweetest raspy voice, not unlike his mum’s. He wouldn’t mind his mum either, to be honest. In fact, he would _really_ like his mum to be here as well.

Brian should be in hospital.

He shouldn’t be on the 176 to Heathrow.

But he can’t just blame Norman Sheffield, as much as he wishes he could. He had so many chances to speak up and squandered every last one of them. No, opening for Mott was the best gig they’d ever had. They couldn’t miss out, after how hard they worked to make it happen.

He told himself that it was a virus, then food poisoning, maybe even psychosomatic. He thought about seeing a shrink back in London.

The others were concerned, but not overly so. How could they know how bad it was? It’s not as if Brian gave them much to work with. It was only when he started to turn yellow did they begin to panic. Roger had actually turned on him, yelling, _why didn’t you fucking say something?_

Even then, Brian still thought that he could play through it. Collapsing backstage had been his own wakeup call—the realization that maybe, just maybe, he’d gotten carried away by all of it. Maybe he’d forgotten, in the midst of some Midwestern fever dream, that he was only flesh and blood. 

But he’ll change. 

He just wants to live.

He just wants to fucking _live_.

God, it feels as if his insides are all knotted together. He swallows, and it hurts. Sure, why not? Everything hurts. Tears sting at his eyes, fogging up his vision. _Oh, don’t cry._ _Don’t_ fucking _cry._

In the end, it’s no contest. He’s just too exhausted, too shattered not to. He presses his face into the seat cushion, trying so hard not to start sobbing out loud that he doesn’t even notice Freddie standing over him. 

“Brian, darling, look at me—” Freddie reaches down, tries to gently roll him around.

That’s what sets him off. That stupid, wavering tone in Freddie’s voice.

He chokes out a sob, and then another. They roll through him like convulsions, seizing him up so hard that he can barely breathe. He folds in on himself, shaking, tears searing their way down his cheeks.

Brian feels Freddie’s hands under him, raising his shoulders off the seat. He doesn’t want to sit up. Why would Freddie make him sit up? He whimpers, tries to curl back onto his side.

“Here, darling, here...”

He realizes, with a little relief, that Freddie isn’t trying to make him sit up. _He’s_ trying to sit down. Freddie tugs him closer, and it takes Brian a moment to comprehend that Freddie is pulling him into his lap. He wants to protest, but the words die quickly on his tongue as Freddie places a cool hand on Brian’s flushed cheek.

Brian just shudders, breathing shallowly. It feels good—takes him out of his head for a moment.

“Are you in pain?”

Brian manages to shake his head.

“You’re scared?”

 _Yeah_ , he nods.

“Me too,” Freddie tells him, “But you’re gonna be all right. You’ll be right as rain, you hear me?” He wipes at Brian’s face with his sleeve, soaking up tears and sweat and snot.

“Sorry—” Brian mutters.

“No, I’m sorry,” Freddie cuts him off. “I’m sorry, love. We’ll do better next time, I promise.”

This gives Brian pause, and he wonders if he’s missed something. He has no idea what Freddie thinks he’s done, or what he’s apologizing for.

“’S’okay,” he croaks. But there’s nothing he can say that comes close to what he feels.

The past is in the past. Reality has shifted, and it isn’t going back. Whatever existed before is just water under the bridge.

As time passes, Freddie hums quietly above him. If Brian listens closely, he can just about hear it over the din of the jet engines.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the Sufjan Stevens song. Yes.


End file.
